


Verdict

by Auchen



Category: Boston Legal, The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Background Case, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8813275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auchen/pseuds/Auchen
Summary: After moving into a new hotel, Liz finds herself living one door down from an irritating lawyer, Alan Shore. As she goes about her life, she continues to run into him, but he's ultimately little more than a bothersome footnote in her life. That holds true until she and her team apprehend a suspect in a series of bank robberies, and Alan happens to be the suspect's defense attorney. Expecting to continue disliking him, Liz eventually finds her feelings toward the lawyer becoming complicated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this weird little crossover, guys! Hopefully you enjoy this journey. A quick note on things that are different: I've chosen to shift the Post Office crew to the Boston FBI office, simply for ease of plot. Also, Red is not present in this story and hasn't shown up in Liz's life. As such, Liz's life isn't as tumultuous as it is in canon, but she's still a bit of a mess at the beginning of this story as she's just come out of a divorce with Tom who--though he wasn't a spy--was a run of the mill jerk. Though this is a crossover with Boston Legal, and there will be some humorous elements, the tone of this story is more like The Practice, i.e., more serious than BL. 
> 
> Anyway, here we go!

As Liz entered the hotel lobby, she hoped that there wouldn’t be another loud party keeping her awake. This new hotel seemed nicer than many of the ones she’d been previously slinking her way through the past few months, but that didn’t change the fact that rowdy students would still buy a room to trash and party in for a night. The only difference was that the party animals at her last hotel had been high school drop outs, and the ones from last night had probably been rich, snotty medical or law students.

After spending a day tracking down insufficient leads for the bank robbers she and her team were trying to find, she had even less patience for hormonal young adults. Her shoes clattered across the slick, polished floor of the lobby as she continued her way toward the elevator. From the outside, she supposed she looked like a harried, high powered business woman striding purposefully across the lobby in order to catch an important meeting, but really the high heels were pinching and her jacket scratched at her neck.

The only thing she wanted at the moment was to make herself a cup of bad hotel coffee and settle in with a book without the sounds of hard rock and pounding feet emanating from the room above her. She adjusted her bag as she reached the closed elevator doors and punched the down button. It began to glow after a moment, and she crossed her arms as she began to wait for the elevator to reach the lobby.

Footsteps started behind her—not the sharp, clacking stabs of high heels, but the easy footfalls of someone in sensible, but expensive shoes. If she was to share the elevator with someone else, she would’ve preferred her ride to be shared with a group rather than one other person. It was much easier to have comfortable silence among a crowd than between two people.

She didn’t look up when the other person stopped next to her, but from her periphery, she could see that it was a dark haired man who was glancing at his watch and smoothing down an invisible wrinkle on his suit. The elevator dinged and slid open, and she shuffled away as the elevator disgorged a small group of people checking their phones and mumbling among themselves.

Once it was empty, she walked inside and hit the button labeled “seven”, then backed away and leaned against the wall. The man walked in, and glanced at the keypad, but didn’t hit any of the buttons. _That_ was what made her finally look at him.

He had settled against the corner opposite her and had commenced staring at the wall, not paying her any mind. Liz’s first thought was that he was following her, but he seemed completely indifferent to her presence. To her, most things seemed to have sinister motives underpinning them, even though she logically knew that wasn’t always true. Sometimes people just happened to need to go to the same floor as you did, and that didn’t mean they had _any_ interest in what you were doing. Clearly, that was what was happened in this instance.

Still, she didn’t look away from him. It was another habit of hers to watch strangers and try to make assumptions about them simply from what she could observe. It made her feel a bit Sherlockian and perhaps a little voyeuristic. Obviously, the man she was sharing her ride with was some kind of business man. The suit and the shoes he wore weren’t cheap, and he had that slick look and tight mouth that came from spending years in an office managing what he saw as incompetent underlings. Her eyes flicked to his hands, and she squinted. He didn’t have ink stains on his fingers, so either he hadn’t been doing much writing with a pen that day, or he had someone else do that kind of thing for him.

But what was he doing at the hotel? She hadn’t seen any other business men that evening, so there probably wasn’t any sort of a large conference or meeting going on. Maybe an illicit liaison?

She looked back up at his face. Though he held himself straight, there was a relaxation in his shoulders that spoke of comfort with himself. And if he was going to be conducting an affair, it would’ve been likely that he would’ve seemed more nervous. And besides, would he really have dressed in something so inconspicuous as his work clothes?

So maybe he was simply meeting an associate that was staying in the hotel. Out of all the options, that seemed the most likely. With a satisfactory conclusion, she was about to look away, but his eyes slid to her, and the neutral expression on his face turned into a crooked smile.

“Do you look at everyone with such intensity? I personally don’t mind being ogled by attractive women, but plenty of people might get the wrong idea if you keep on doing that,” he said, turning toward her.

Liz kept herself from sighing. Of _course_ she would’ve been forced to share an elevator ride with someone insufferable. “I was zoning out. Sorry about that,” she said, and turned back toward the keypad. Hopefully that was a disinterested enough answer.

“Zoning out implies a certain lack of awareness and blankness on your part. I’d say what you were doing was the complete opposite of that.”

She crossed her arms and turned to him. Maybe the wisest thing to do was simply ignore him, but she’d never been the sort to wilt and fade away into the background when faced with an argument—even less so now. “Fine. I people watch sometimes.”

“Well, what you were doing would be classified more as _person_ watching, I believe.” He folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward a bit, still with that irritating smile.

“There’s only one other person in this elevator, so I didn’t really have much of a choice. I guess could watch myself in the elevator mirror, but I really have no interest in doing that,” she said, and flicked her eyes toward the mirror. Her hair was tangled from the wind, and the circles under her eyes stood out like faint bruises beneath the smearing of concealer she’d applied that morning. Her cheekbones were sharper than they had been awhile ago. A disastrous divorce and a stressful job hadn’t exactly done wonders for her appearance.

“If you wanted to look at yourself, I really wouldn’t have blamed you. You’re very…” His eyes flicked from her face, down, then up again. He swallowed. “ _Well_.”

Had he just given her elevator eyes in an _elevator_? He was even more shameless than the permanently jobless twenty-five year old from her last hotel. He had lived down the hall from her with his girlfriend, and whenever she wasn’t around, he went moon eyed at the sight of Liz and tried to drop—what he seemed to assume—were flawless pick up lines. He had been irritating, but mostly harmless.

The elevator binged, and the doors opened, saving her from enduring a second more of conversation with the man. She uncrossed her arms and walked out before he did, and started her way toward the end of the hall where her room lay. As she walked, a shadow followed behind her. She stopped in her tracks and whirled around.

“What, are you following me?” Her shoulders bunched up under her ears like an angry cat raising its hackles.

“No. I _live_ here.” He craned his neck to look around her, vaguely indicating the direction of his own room.

Liz was momentarily distracted from her irritation by his statement. She blinked and raised a hand in the air. Why would a man that seemed to be as well off as he live in a hotel? It wasn’t a bad hotel by any means, but most people in his position would’ve bought themselves a large house and a Mercedes to display their status.

“You live _here_?” She pointed down at the floor.

“Not in this very spot—”

She inhaled, raised her hands in surrender, then dropped them. “I don’t have time for this.”

She turned around and started toward her room again, then dug in her purse for her key card once she made it to her door. As she glanced up, she saw the man doing the very same thing at the door next to hers. She was going to swipe her card and dart in before he could say anything else, but as he raised his card, his head turned to her. He broke out in a wide smile.

“Well, it looks like we’re neighbors,” he said.

Liz raised her eyebrows and gave a forced smile. “Yes, looks like it.”

The man shoved his key card into his breast pocket. “I sense some…” he raised his hands and squinted, “ _animosity_.”

He dropped one hand into his pocket, then extended the other towards her. “Alan Shore.” She just looked at his hand with a pursed mouth.

“Aren’t introductions the neighborly thing to do?” He took a step back and pressed a palm to his forehead. “ _Sorry_ , I forgot we live in the city, where we ignore everyone and hate our neighbors.”

She swiped her key card. “ _Agent_ Elizabeth Keen,” she told him, giving him a mock-sweet smile.

When she let it slip to the flirtatious twenty-five year old that she worked for the FBI, he had made a series of strangled stuttering noises and stopped bothering her thereafter. Alan seemed less likely to back off, but it was worth mentioning her job if it meant he might run away with his tail between his legs.

“I’m afraid I don’t find that as comforting as you might have hoped it to be.” He pressed a hand against his chest.

“It’s not like I’m gonna try to bug your room or something. Frankly, as long as you don’t bother me, I really don’t care what you do.” She pulled her door open, walked in and shut it before he could say anything else.

Liz dumped her bag on the floor and pinched her the bridge of her nose.

If given the choice between having a loud party above her and living next to Alan Shore, she would’ve chosen the party.


	2. Chapter 2

Liz wanted to begin her day by heading to the firing range. But after the day she’d had yesterday, she supposed perhaps it was better to start her morning in a calmer manner than by firing rounds through the centers of defenseless paper targets. The firing range could be cathartic, but she needed to set a different tone for the rest of her week. So instead, she’d decided to make time to use the hotel’s breakfast buffet.

Usually breakfast buffets were more expensive than she could justify, so she simply settled on eating a piece of toast or a bowl of cereal. But would there really be any harm in using the hotel’s buffet selection just once? Besides, it could act as a palette cleanser for her opinion of the hotel so far. If the buffet was good, then she could momentarily forgive—though not forget—the obnoxious party goers and her smug neighbor.

She slipped on a T-shirt and black jeans, pulled her hair into a half-hearted ponytail, and stared in the bathroom mirror for a moment. She opened the corner of her mouth to blow a way a long strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes. There would be time to further refine her appearance after eating. The opinions bleary of eyed strangers drinking orange juice didn’t much matter to her.

Liz grabbed her purse and key card off the night stand and headed out the door. Before walking to the elevator at the beginning of the hall, she paused next to Alan’s room and eyed it, half-expecting him to come out the same moment she did, resuming his incessant chatter. The only good thing about him had been that he hadn’t made any noise while she was trying to fall asleep. If that habit continued, perhaps living next to him would be mildly tolerable.

Not willing to press her luck any further, she hurried past his door as quietly as she could, not wanting to walk loudly enough so as to wake the other sleeping residents. She straightened as she stopped in front of the elevator and pressed her palm against the “up” arrow. She glanced over her shoulder, cheek pressing against the soft fabric of her shirt. All the doors on her hallways stayed closed.

As the elevator opened, she shuffled back on her heel, but stopped when she saw that there was no one else in it. A smile twitched at her mouth at the small, empty box of the elevator. She allowed her smile to grow as she walked in and pressed the button for the lobby.

When the door opened, an invisible, curling cloud reached her—it was made up of the intermingled scents of scrambled eggs and pancakes, and it momentarily made her want to put her life in order so that she could get up before sunrise and make herself a lovingly prepared breakfast before she walked into her office. It was certainly the thing one of the successful business women would have done in the various TV shows she never seemed to have the time to watch anymore.

Still, as she headed into the buffet area, she found that she couldn’t justify getting a lot of food, especially since she was considering going for a run before work if there was enough time. So, it was with some regret that she only scooped a small pile of eggs and a croissant onto her plate. As she walked toward a seat close to a window, she glanced back at the pancakes, reconsidering getting a small one. The run could wait until tomorrow, couldn’t it?

Turning her head back toward the table she was walking towards, she stopped. In front of her was the familiar straight shoulders and sharp suit of Alan. She took several steps to the right and started to walk past him, keeping her head lowered and turned away, hoping that maybe he wouldn’t notice her and she could make it to her seat without him trying to make any sort of conversation.

As she put her plate on the table, the black blur of his suit started to pass her by. She started to sink into her seat and exhale, but then she saw his head turn, eyes flicking over the tables against the wall until they landed on her. Liz looked down and reached into her purse as if she was searching for her phone, trying to feign distraction. She narrowed her eyes and squinted, lifting her bag onto her table as she continued to rummage for nothing in particular, receipts and olds wrappers crinkling, loose change rattling against each other.

The chair opposite her slid out, legs groaning against the floor. She didn’t look up, just removed her phone, tapping a news app. She reached for her croissant.

“You know, I’ve spent enough time in the courtroom to tell when someone is only _pretending_ not to pay attention.”

Liz bit into the croissant before looking up. Alan was sitting across from her, leaning back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, a wisp of steam emitting from the paper cup sitting on the corner next to him.

The _courtroom_. She should’ve known—the arrogance, the habit of quibbling over the various meanings of words—he was obviously a lawyer. She’d been too engrossed in trying to get out of a conversation with him last night to realize what his real profession was.

“If you think you’re good at reading social cues, I’m going to disagree with you.” She took another bite from the croissant and looked back down at her phone again, opening an article on new space discoveries. “I’m in hurry, and don’t have time to talk right now.”

“For someone in a hurry, you certainly seem to be taking your time to eat and look at your phone,” he said. She heard him take a sip from the coffee.

She picked up her fork and started to prod at the eggs. “Listen, I don’t stay very long at one place, so I really don’t have any interest in getting to know my neighbors.”

“I’d say that’s all the more reason to get to know those around you.” He leaned a hand against the edge of the table and flicked it in the air. “It’s exhilarating to become deeply acquainted with a person in a short amount of time.”

“That’s not the kind of exhilaration I’m looking for.” She lifted the fork to her mouth and chewed on the eggs, frowning at how they seemed to be slightly undercooked.

“No, I suppose not. You probably get all the excitement you need from car chases and shooting at alleged criminals.” He took another drink from his coffee and wrinkled his nose, perhaps just as dissatisfied with it as she was with her eggs.

“You watch too much TV. There’s a lot more paperwork and hours of sitting in a car during stakeouts, only to get no leads. I’ve spent a fair bit of time testifying in court too.” She put her fork down, giving up on the eggs and deciding to finish of the croissant. “There’s a lot more down time than you might expect.”

She almost sighed at herself. Why was she carrying on a conversation with him? She should’ve just tried to ignore him, eat her breakfast, and get on with her day. There was very little good that could come out of engaging with Alan.

“I’m certain I’d remember if I’d seen you testify.” He gave her a thin, close mouthed smile, eyes flicking across her face. “It would be quite something to cross examine you.”

She had to inhale to keep her temper in check. Raising her voice wouldn’t accomplish anything, especially since he made it his profession to argue. Alan seemed quite self confident, so taking a jab at his ego might prove effective.

“If I’d seen you in court, I probably wouldn’t remember.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Every attorney is pretty much the same—middle aged men in black suits in love with their own voices.”

“Well, you’ve apparently decided I’m at least memorable enough to continue talking to, otherwise you would continue ignoring me and look at your phone,” he said, wearing a small, self satisfied smile.

Her jaw tightened. She stood up and shoved her chair in, gathered her things and walked toward the desk to pay her bill. She wasn’t wasting any more time on Alan.

* * *

“What’s wrong? I thought you got that kid from your place to leave you alone.” Ressler was looking at her with a raised eyebrow as he held a cup of coffee, waiting for it to cool down.

Liz glanced up from the file she was thumbing through and frowned. Had her frustration really been that evident on her face? She’d left the breakfast buffet with frustration turning into a small headache, but she thought there had been enough time between her conversation and heading to the office that her irritation was no longer as obvious. He was little more than a blip in her entire day. She should’ve been able to shuffle the encounter to the back of her mind.

She flipped the folder closed. “I did get him to back off, but I’m at a new hotel, and I’m living next to this lawyer. He has this way of getting under my skin.” She waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Sounds like you should’ve stayed where you were before.” Ressler reached for the file, which she handed off to him.

“Thanks for the sympathy,” she said, turning around in her chair, crossing her arms.

He put the cup down on the edge of the desk, which she scooted away with her thumb, keeping it away from the stack of folders next to her. Liz wasn’t taking the chance of a disastrous spillage.

Ressler shrugged one shoulder as he thumbed through the file. “I’m just stating the obvious. It sounded like your last place was fine, and the move wasn’t for the better.”

“My last place _wasn’t_ fine. Everything was outdated, and there were _leaks_. And the neighbors weren’t much better.” She flicked two fingers, signaling him to hand the file back to her.

Ressler often liked looking at things in terms of absolutes—even arbitrarily moving from one hotel to another. It was simultaneously one of his most admirable and infuriating traits.

Instead of handing the file back to her, he dropped it next to her on the desk and picked his cup back up and drank from it, the coffee apparently sufficiently cooled down. “If you’re lucky, he’ll be the kind of lawyer that basically lives at his office.”

“With the way my luck has been so far this year, he’ll get his hours cut down by half and will end up staying at my hotel all the time.” She didn’t want to spend much time contemplating that possibility. It was too unpleasant, and Liz had been trying to make it a habit to shove everything unpleasant to the back of her mind to be dealt with later. Perhaps that wasn’t the healthiest way to deal with her concerns, but she couldn’t waste time or energy while she was at work by stewing on her problems.

Ressler opened his mouth, about to say something else, but Cooper and Samar walked in at the same time, both looking like they had a severe sleep deficit they needed to get caught up on. Samar had been working heavily on a kidnapping case that seemed to be taking an emotional toll on her, and Cooper…well, he often had a tense air about him. Liz didn’t blame him much. Being the head of the Boston FBI office’s Violent Crimes unit would make even the serenest soul stressed.

“Keen,” Cooper said, looking over at Liz. She remained straight in her seat. “Have you and Ressler made any progress in the Vardy crew’s robberies since yesterday?”

“Yesterday’s surveillance of the warehouse we suspected they might have used in the past didn’t turn up anything, but we’ve got a lunch meeting at noon today with an informant. We’ll see how helpful that ends up being.” She wasn’t feeling optimistic about the case. The stolen car they’d found last week had been completely wiped free of prints and anything else useful. They’d found some hair, but it turned out to be hair from the original car owner’s dog.

“I wouldn’t hold out too much hope,” Ressler said, half into his coffee cup, his words muffled and echoing.

Liz sucked on her bottom teeth to keep herself from glaring at him. Whatever doubts she had, at least she wasn’t voicing them to their superior.

But Cooper didn’t seem put off by Ressler’s comment as much as she was, since he was already moving onto Samar and asking for updates on the Pitzer kidnapping. Since his attention seemed to have drifted, Liz turned back to her computer to check if any new cases had been piled on top of her.

* * *

“I’m sorry to hear that your cockatoo doesn’t seem to be doing well, Mr. Ricer. Is your garden fine at least?” Liz tried to keep her posture relaxed, but Ressler remained somewhat stiff beside her.

She understood—Mr. Ricer tended to ramble about his domestic grievances before getting to the point, but if they didn’t let him talk about what he wanted, it was unlikely he would open up about criminal whisperings he’d caught wind of. Despite his oddities, Mr. Ricer had been a well regarded burglar in his day, so he stayed in contact with the thieving sections of the criminal world.

“The tulips are stubborn,” he sighed. “The advertisement in the catalog said that they were genetically engineered to grow more quickly than normal tulips! Maybe I should sue them for false advertising.”

 _Maybe he should_ , Liz thought. If she was fortunate, that particular frivolous suit would be assigned to Alan, and he’d be so busy with it she wouldn’t see him.

“Very unfortunate,” Ressler said, slipping his hands off the table. He’d barely taken a bite of his sandwich.

“You know what’s unfortunate? The fact that you won’t eat your food, Donald. How are you gonna stay strong if you refuse to eat anything? Look at your partner, she has the same problem!” Mr. Ricer waved a hand in the direction of Liz’s face. “You’re a bad influence.”

She hadn’t thought her weight loss after the divorce had been so noticeable that even an informant would notice. “ _So_ ,” Liz paused to take a bite of her sandwich to appease him. “Has Mason talked about anything interesting recently?”

Mason was the—probably false name—of a younger burglar that admired Mr. Ricer and had apparently glommed onto him. Plenty of the information Mason told Mr. Ricer was trivial, or of no use to her, but every once in a while, the second hand reports of his fan boy-ish ramblings proved useful.

“He’s been complaining about how his usual fence won’t pay enough for some rings. Sure, they weren’t of the highest quality, but he’s gotta appreciate the lengths to which Mason went to get those rings. That’s gotta raise the price a bit.” Mr. Ricer leaned back in his seat and tapped a finger in the middle of the table. “It ain’t good business to be stingy with your clientele. That fence is gonna lose a lot of good thieves if he keeps that up.”

Mr. Ricer punctuated his point by raising his mug of coffee and slurping from it. While he was busy drinking from the cup, Ressler pressed a hand to his forehead and removed it before Mr. Ricer could see.

“Did he have anything else to say?” Ressler asked, then bit into his sandwich.

“Well.” Mr. Ricer straightened and rubbed his fingers against his chin. He leaned forward, glancing between the two of them. “Word is that the Vardy crew is gonna hit Wells Fargo tomorrow.”

Liz blinked and pressed herself back against her chair, glancing over at Ressler. He held up a hand and mouthed several curses to her. They’d expected a tid bit from Mr. Ricer, not something as substantial as an exact date and place for the Vardy crew’s next bank robbery. Especially not so _soon_. She hadn’t heard _anything_ about it until that moment, so they needed to try to verify the rumor somehow, but their verification had to be quick.

“Thank you for the information, Mr. Ricer. We should be going now, though,” Ressler said, starting to rise.

Mr. Ricer pointed at Ressler’s barely eaten sandwich. “Better take that with you.”

“Sure,” Ressler said, flashing a quick, stiff smile.

Liz and Ressler flagged a waiter to get a box for their sandwiches so they could leave the shop to avoid having an ex-burglar feeling miffed with them.


	3. Chapter 3

“Yeah, it looks like there’s been some chatter about it on a couple Dark Web forums for  two weeks.” Aram turned the computer screen so she could see it without leaning over his shoulder.

Liz and Ressler had spent the last several hours after meeting with Mr. Ricer attempting to verify the rumors about the Vardy crew’s next bank robbery. With such short notice, it was difficult to reach out across their networks in order to confirm the story, but they’d done their best. Over a brief call, another informant verified the rumor—albeit, in somewhat vague, veiled terms—, and now Aram was telling them there was discussion surrounding it on the Dark Web.

“Do we know who any of these people are?” Ressler asked, glaring at the screen. Aram turned the screen in his direction, and began typing.

“No, we don’t. Some of their usernames are familiar, but we don’t know their real identities. However, at least several of the users have a history of being right with these rumors.” Aram stopped typing and turned around in his chair to look over at Ressler, looking concerned that the other man might be displeased with the information.

None of the information was concrete, but Liz knew they had to make a quick decision whether to act on it or not. Wells Fargo was potentially going to be hit tomorrow, and it wouldn’t do to take chances. If they ended up staking out the bank and nothing happened, they would lose very little, aside from an afternoon. If they didn’t act and it was robbed…they would partially be to blame.

Ressler was frowning, seemingly unhappy with the flimsiness of the information, but as his hard eyes flicked over to her, she could see he was weighing their options just like she was, and Ressler didn’t like taking the chance of letting criminals get away. Maybe he felt conflicted, but she knew what he ultimately wanted to do.

“We should take this to Cooper and see if he’ll give us the go-ahead,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of his office.

“Yeah, but I have one more thing to check, then I’ll go over there, okay?” Ressler started to step back, glancing toward his desk.

Liz pressed her lips together. “Sure. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

After Ressler left, some of the tension in Aram’s shoulders seemed to leave. The combination of his desire to please others and Ressler’s naturally intimidating aura tended to put him on edge at times. He set his hands against both sides of the computer monitor and straightened it, scooting the monitor several inches up the desk, rearranging everything to his liking.

Liz pressed the edge of her hand against her mouth. “Hey, Aram,” she said.

He swiveled in his chair, eyes widening for a moment, but then he settled again. “Is there something else you need for the Vardy case, Agent Keen?”

The question she had was a foolish one and she knew it. It would distract Aram from the actual, important things that he needed to be doing. She could look up the research she wanted him to find on her own. But if she did that, she wouldn’t have the same resources he had.

She dropped her hand. “So, I have a favor to ask of you, and don’t feel obligated at all to do it. It’s just that…there’s this guy living at my hotel, and I don’t really know anything about him, so I was wondering if you could do a little research on him for me?”

“You’re really taking this another level beyond Facebook stalking,” he said, smiling.

Liz waved a hand in the air. “No, it’s _not_ —”

She dropped her hand and sighed. “He’s a lawyer, so if I have to deal with him in the future in court, I’d like to know what I’m up against.”

That statement was, of course, mostly an excuse. Part of it was true, but desire her for Aram to research Alan was primarily to satisfy her own curiosity. Maybe she just wanted to know if there was something more to him than the smug facade, or maybe she just wanted to know what he was like when he was in his natural environment. Whatever the reason, part of her twisted in shame for asking Aram to do the research for her, but she still wanted to know.

Aram gave a light laugh and held up one hand. “Don’t worry, I didn’t think you wanted me to do research on a potential date for you. I don’t mind finding a few things on this lawyer. What’s his name?”

“Alan Shore,” she told him, almost grimacing as she said it.

* * *

“Long day at the office?”

She jerked her neck to look at Alan walking up behind her. How was it that they’d walked through the lobby doors at the same time? Did Alan’s firm keep the same unholy hours that the FBI swore by?

“Yeah, it was.” She shifted her purse, painfully aware of the papers poking out of the top. With two fingers, shoved them deeper into the purse. Unless he somehow possessed X-ray vision, there was no way he could know that they were about him. 

He followed close beside her as they walked the length of the lobby toward the elevator, like it was some kind of terrible repeat of the night they’d met. “Does the FBI often instruct their agents to carry sensitive documents amongst their chap stick and spare change?”

She shouldn’t have acted so nervous about the papers she had. “These aren’t sensitive papers. If they were, I wouldn’t leave them poking out of my bag so lawyers could get a peek at classified information. I’m not an idiot.”

Alan pressed the “up” button before she could. He turned, smiling at her, one hand wrapped loosely around his brief case, the other in his jacket pocket. “Oh, I don’t doubt that _you’re_ competent.”

Liz had to keep herself from blinking at that, but her fingers tightened against her purse. “Then what _were_ you implying?”

“That the government is incredibly senseless, but not everyone that works for them necessarily reflects that idiocy,” he said, leaning towards her. The doors behind them slid open. “Ah! There we go. After you?” He indicated toward the open doors with his briefcase.

“…I’m fine.” She was still trying to reconcile his odd, vaguely insulting behavior over the past three days with his apparent compliment just a moment ago. 

He tilted his head back and forth. “You like having things your way, don’t you, Agent?” He started to back up into the elevator, eyes on her.

She shrugged and walked past him. She punched the number for their floor. “Can’t argue with that, Mr. Shore.”

He laughed at that.

* * *

“That guy looks ashamed.” Ressler pointed at the monitor towards a man that was glancing back and forth, eyes shadowed beneath his battered, fraying baseball cap.

“Well, not everyone is going to be happy when they have to go to the bank. Maybe a bounced a check.” Liz leaned her cheek against her knuckles.

They’d been sitting in the back of a van watching feeds of Wells Fargo all day. So far, there was no sign that Vardy’s crew was going to show their faces. Perhaps she should’ve felt some amount of relief, but she wanted to catch Vardy—or at least, one of his crew members. The case was consuming valuable time she could’ve spent on other cases that had been assigned to her that were shoved to the back burner in favor of chasing slippery robbers.

When several shifty looking men had entered the bank an hour ago, she and Ressler had debated for several minutes over whether they were criminals or not. At least one of them had looked similar to a police sketch of one of Vardy’s crew, but when the men exited the bank and no alarm had been sounded, she relaxed again, feeling somewhat disappointed.

She knew she shouldn’t have felt disappointed that the bank and its customers were safe, but after little movement on the Vardy case, she wanted some headway, and perhaps a little bit of excitement. Maybe Alan had been right that she liked the occasional thrills that her job provided her.

“So, how are,” Liz waved a her fingers in the air, “…things?

Ressler flicked his eyes toward her before returning most of his attention to the monitor. “What things?”

“I don’t know. Your life? How is it?” She looked away from him. Neither of them were particularly forthcoming about their private lives, so it had probably been a mistake to try to engage Ressler in small talk about his, but she needed some topic to fill the time.

He shrugged and leaned his elbow against the desk the monitor sat on. “It’s fine. I can’t really complain. …And yours?”

Liz dropped her hand and laced her fingers together. “Oh yeah, it’s fine. I mean, it could be better, but couldn’t it always?”

“You’re doing okay, though? I mean, after everything with Tom,” Ressler said, his words stilted. He was trying to show some concern and compassion towards her circumstances, but didn’t know how to approach a sensitive topic. At least he was trying, but if the only discussion she could have about it would awkward, she’d rather not talk about it at all.

“I’m doing okay. I’m not married to him anymore, which is the main thing.” She looked down and nodded, half to herself. It was true she was drifting from hotel to hotel, restless and untethered, trying to find somewhere she could sink her roots into the ground, but she would rather lead a semi-nomadic life than continue struggling through a broken, emotionally toxic marriage.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” he said, and gave a small smile. For once, it wasn’t stiff.

After that, their conversation lapsed into silence, with them taking turns looking at the monitor. During surveillance, she always learned that there were certain patterns in the crowd, ebbs and flows relating to the time of the day, or various other factors. Once, at a department story they’d been monitoring, she’d figured out there was a three hour long, limited sale based on the growth of the crowd and the similar products that customers exited with.

Watching the pattern could just be a way to pass the time, but it could also be useful. If there were ripples and irregularities among the crowd, it could mean nothing, but it could also mean that something was about to happen. Just like a herd of deer shying and scattering when they sensed predators nearby, humans seemed to sometimes sense when something was off, even if it wasn’t obvious.

As she had been watching the feeds of the entrance and exits of the Wells Fargo, she hadn’t noticed any such disruptions in the flow of customers. The only thing that might have counted were several people clustering together when a slightly disheveled, disoriented woman walked by. Liz had discounted her.

The current feeds showed a lull in the customer flow, only two or three people walking in or out every few minutes. She was about to let Ressler take over when he grabbed her shoulder.

“Ressler, what the hell—”

“It wasn’t the Wells Fargo,” he said, phone against his ear.

She shook her head, heart throbbing from the surprise. “What do you mean?”

“The rumor about Wells Fargo must’ve been some kind of disinformation campaign. The Vardy crew just hit Morgan Stanley.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A disclaimer for all future Law Stuff in this story: I do my best with the research I have on hand to make the legal things seem at least somewhat accurate in this fic, but I'm sure I'll make some mistakes. So if you know anything about law, I apologize for inaccuracies that will doubtlessly occur. And now, on to the story.

The employees of the Morgan Stanley still seemed nervous. Some of them were glancing around, or shying away at the sight of Liz and Ressler’s gun holsters. No one had been injured, but for many people, brushing against the shoulder of danger was more than enough to make them frightened and overly cautious.

Liz and Ressler had driven over as quickly as possible, but the Wells Fargo had been a distance away from Morgan Stanley, and traffic had been difficult to get through. By the time they’d arrived, Vardy’s crew was gone, and several police cars were parked in front of the bank, the dark lines of uniformed officers skulking in and out of the building like crows attracted to a carcass. Ressler had had more than a few choice words about the whole situation.

The bank manager that they were standing next to inside the bank was a middle aged woman with a firm, determined jaw and a sensible bob cut that had been dyed burgundy—the unnatural hair color perhaps a daring action in the eyes of a straight laced woman.

“Did you get a look at any of them?” Ressler asked her, hands on his hips.

The manager’s shoulders rose as if she was about to sigh, but instead gave him a thin lipped smile. She’d probably been dealing with more idiotic questions for years. “As I told the police: No, I didn’t. They were all wearing masks, but maybe one of the outside cameras caught something.”

“They couldn’t have gone far. We can set up a blockade—”

“The police have done that as well,” the manager said, in a brisk, customer-service voice.

Liz bit her lip and glanced away toward the doors. Seeing Ressler getting interrupted by a short, practical, middle aged woman was turning out to be one of the highlights of her day.

“…Okay, well we’ll try to track them down, then. Monitor the police radios, the tips, all of that. We can send out some of our own to try to catch them.” Ressler started scanning the police officers scattered around the area, trying to see who seemed to be in charge.

“I’ll take you to the lead detective investigating the case." She clasped her hands in front of her.

"You can look the security footage if you want to,” the manager said to Liz, as if she was in charge of her. For a moment, the woman reminded Liz of a fifth grade teacher she had had—the teacher hadn’t been cruel, but she had a quiet, authoritative air about her, and a soft voice that dared her students to defy her. They usually didn’t.

“Sure, I’ll look through it and see if there’s anything,” Liz said as the manager and Ressler started to turn away from her, the manager’s hand against the center of Ressler’s back, leading him to the police detective.

“The security office is over there,” the manager said, turning her head so Liz could see her profile. She tipped her chin toward a small office with the door propped open.

Liz walked to the office and leaned her head in. There was a thin man hunched over a keyboard, sitting in front of several different screens that showed different sections of the bank, as well as a few views outside of the bank. She rapped her hand against the door frame.

The man’s shoulder’s jerked and he swiveled the chair around, one of the wheels squealing, making his seat wobble. Adjusting his black framed glasses, he kicked his feet against the floor to scoot the chair closer to her.

“I’m Agent Keen, one of the FBI agents working the Vardy robberies. Your manager indicated to me that there might be something on the security videos that could help us.”

The man blinked at her behind his glasses, eyes turned wide behind their frames. “Certainly,” he said, after a silence that had been a bit too long.

He scooted back over to the monitors, tapped several keys, and a paused feed showed up on one of the monitors. It showed a group of five masked men dressed in black going into the bank, their limbs a blur in the paused footage. All of their heads were turned away from the camera, but it wouldn’t have made any difference whether they were looking at it or not.

“They came in forty-five minutes ago,” the man said, leaning back in the chair. It squeaked, and he moved the cursor on the screen, unpausing the footage. “They stayed for ten minutes, grabbed cash, and ran.”

The robbers jerked back to life and the footage jumped to a shot from the inside of the bank. Two of the robbers peeled off from the main group and pulled out their guns, the outline of their mouths moving under their ski masks, presumably giving orders to the tellers and customers. The taller, broader robber pointed his gun at someone off screen and shouted something. Customers started sinking to the floor, eyes wide and flicking back and forth over the scene, like terrified animals that could do nothing but lay down, offering their throats to wolves.

The other three robbers rushed to the tellers, jamming cash into canvas bags as quickly as the tellers could shove the money at them. Liz watched all ten minutes of footage play out, hand pressed against her chin. From what she’d studied of the Vardy crew in the past, they usually only worked with four members, and often worked more quickly than this job took. Ten minutes was unusual for them.

As the footage played out, she took notice of one of the robbers that was taking money from the tellers. He was new. He was short and slight—not someone that would be used as threatening muscle, but someone potentially agile and quick. He glanced over his shoulder every once in a while and his movements in taking the money weren’t as hurried as the two other robbers. Perhaps this robbery had been a trial run to see whether their newest member had the tenacity to pull off a bank robbery.

It was a gutsy move, especially with the trouble they’d gone to spreading false information about which bank they were actually robbing. Disinformation could have meant that they wanted to take some of the pressure of their newest member, or it could’ve meant that the Morgan Stanley job was high stakes.

“Do you have any footage taken of them leaving?” she asked.

“Sure.” The man tapped a key, and the video of the almost completed robbery was replaced by footage of the robbers rushing out the exit that lead through an alley. There was a blurring motion, and the new robber yanked off his mask before disappearing around a corner.

“Right there, the guy took his mask off. Can you try to zoom in on it?”

“Yeah, but the quality of that camera isn’t very good.” The man scooted down his glasses and pinched his beakish nose. “His face is probably just gonna look like a blur.”

When the man zoomed in, she saw that he had been right—the robber’s face was grainy, but she could at least make out his blonde hair and the angular shape of his face, and the outline of his mouth and nose.

“The footage of the ghost we caught a few months ago was better than this,” the man said, his voice monotone.

“The…ghost?” She glanced around the room. Nothing about the security office or the rest of the Morgan Stanley would’ve indicated to her that it was old enough to house a ghost. It even still smelled vaguely of new carpeting and varnish.

“Yeah, this bank was built where an old apartment building used to stand. There’s some bad stories about things that happened there. Anyway, that ghost video got really popular and got quite a few views online. Do you want to see it?” The man’s dull, grayish eyes lit up.

The man seemed to have such a disinteresting job that it seemed cruel to definitively tell him no. “You know, maybe another time. But right now, do you think you could work on getting the FBI and the police a still of the man’s face to show around on the news?”

The man’s shoulders fell a little, but he didn’t completely lose the spark in his eyes. “All right.”

“Thank you, it’s greatly appreciated.” She smiled at him. She didn’t always make an effort to make the civilians she dealt with feel appreciated, especially if she was in a high pressure situation where she couldn’t worry about other people’s feelings, but if the case allowed it, she did her best to be courteous.

“I should go find my partner now. There’s no telling where your boss took him off to.”

* * *

The flashing police lights flickered over the white paint of the stopped car, washing it red and blue.

An hour after leaving the bank, Liz and Ressler had been manning the tip line when they’d gotten a call that the police had stopped a stolen vehicle with a man inside that looked similar to the robber caught on the surveillance footage. Ressler had driven them over to the scene as quickly as he could.

As they both got out of the car, Liz leaned toward him. “Don’t antagonize the police. We’re working with them. Morgan Stanley isn’t federally insured, and as far as we know, this suspect hasn’t committed robberies across state lines like the rest of the Vardy crew, so technically the police would get jurisdiction over this man’s arrest.”

“Yes, but he’s tangled up with Vardy, so we’re _still_ involved.” Ressler kept walking forward, staring down the detective that had been assigned to the Morgan Stanley robbery. The lead detective, Ezra Weller, was likely in his early forties and already gray streaking his temples and the scruff along his chin.

“Just _try_ to play nice,” she said, jaw clenched. She leaned away and smiled, waving when the Ezra looked over at them.

Liz walked ahead of Ressler in order to start their interaction off on a friendly note. “Does it look like the driver of the car was our guy from the footage?”

Weller glanced toward one of the police cars that had two occupants—another detective and a blonde man hunched over in the back, rubbing one hand through the mess of his hair. “Yep. We caught him with all the money from the robbery and a ski mask in his trunk. Seems like a gamble on Vardy’s part to give the new kid all the cash, but I guess he figured it’d be best if someone he had no loyalty to took the fall for the whole job if things went wrong.”

Liz still watched the car the young robber sat in. The other detective had turned around in the passenger’s seat, leaning over to the man, spreading his hands and nodding. The robber shook his head. She looked back at Ezra, who was scratching at the stubble along his jaw. “That sounds like Vardy. He’s loyal to his crew, but not if they’re incompetent, and not if they’re new and haven’t proven themselves," she said.

“We’re going to interview him too,” Ressler interjected, arms crossed over his chest. He tilted his head and gazed at Ezra over his nose.

Rather than get ruffled that Ressler was telling him what to do, Ezra just shrugged and jammed his hands into his jacket pockets. “Sure, it’s your case too. The FBI has more gravitas than the plain old police, so maybe you’ll scare him. The more we get out of this guy, the better.”

Ressler pressed his lips together, arms loosening over his chest, disarmed by the detective’s unperturbed attitude. “All right. We’ll see you at the police station then.”

Ezra pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and stuck it in the side of his mouth, jaw moving as he worked it between his molars. “Sure.” He nodded at Ressler and headed toward the car where the other detective was still talking to the criminal.

“Huh.” Liz gave Ressler a sidelong glance. “Looks like you didn’t need to get aggressive after all.”

Ressler rolled his eyes and dropped his arms. “Let’s get ready to head to the police station and find out what we can from the suspect.”

* * *

“Guy’s name is Marshall Wren.” Ezra stood next to them in front of the one-way glass, lifting up one sheet of paper from a stack on clipboard. “He’s got a history of petty theft and breaking and entering.”

In the empty interrogation room, Marshall sat at the table, hands folded on top of it, shoulders hunched. He didn’t look up toward the glass or the camera in the corner of the room. He looked small and fragile; hardly someone that should’ve been trusted with a bag full of cash, but just the sort of person to take the fall for a job gone wrong through his own mistakes.

Liz almost felt sorry for him, but stopped herself before her mind went any further. It was his own decisions that put him in that interrogation room, no one else’s.

“It’s a pretty big leap to go from taking someone’s TV to robbing a bank with a crew of robbers known to the FBI,” Ressler said, eyes on Marshall.

“He fell off the radar for awhile. After he was released from prison, it seemed like he was trying to clean up his act, but clearly something happened between now and then.” Ezra shrugged and dropped the paper back onto the clipboard.

“Well,” Ezra said with a sigh and smile, “we’ll all go in at once, but who wants to talk to him first?”

Ressler started to open his mouth, but closed it and glanced to Liz. For a moment, she said nothing and just stared at him. With how adamant he had been about them not being left out of the case, she would’ve expected him to jump at the chance to talk to Marshall first.

“You think Agent Keen should go?” Ezra said, picking up on the unsaid prompt between the two of them.

“Yeah, the guy is pretty young and looks scared. He might clam up if we go for the throat right off, so maybe we should play the mothering angle.”

Somewhat surprised at his levelheaded analysis, Liz nodded. “I think that sounds like a good idea. Let’s begin gently.”

Liz could be abrasive as any FBI interrogator, but she preferred to feel out and analyze the situation before automatically deciding to go full throttle after the suspect. Some criminals only started talking when you shouted and accused, and yet others only opened up after some easy conversation had been exchanged.

Walking around Ezra and Ressler, Liz opened the door, letting herself be the first person that Marshall saw. “Good afternoon, Mr. Wren,” she said, keeping her voice soft.

Marshall’s head jerked up, his eyes wide, pupils pinpricks, gaze darting to the two men that trailed in behind her. As Ezra and Ressler sat down in two chairs across from him, they kept their movements slow, like they were trying not to frighten off a skittish creature. Liz took the seat at the corner and folded her hands on the table, mirroring Marshall’s own hands.

“Do you need anything? Maybe some water, or a snack from the vending machine?” She tilted her head, eyes flicking over his face, but not catching his gaze. If they were going to have eye contact, she would let him establish it.

He kept his eyes averted. “No, I’m fine,” he said, attempting to make his voice sound firm.

“All right, but let me know at any time if you need anything.” Liz leaned back in her chair and smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, the last letters of the word swallowed and mumbled.

“Listen, Mr. Wren, I know you’ve had a stressful day, but we need to talk about what happened,” she said, keeping her tone steady.

“What, the car? That was an accident. I thought it was my car, but when I realized it wasn’t, the police started chasing me and it was too late…” Marshall picked at the back of his hand with one nail for a few seconds and stopped.

Ressler snorted, and Liz narrowed her eyes at him. It wasn’t quite time to start pushing Marshall hard for the truth. “Detective Weller didn’t say you told that to his partner.”

“Yeah, I guess I was just…” his shoulders jerked up, “dazed or whatever about everything that was happening.”

“So what about the money and the mask that were found in the car?” Liz spread her hands, showing she was willing to listen to his flimsy lie.

“They must’ve belonged to the real owner of the car.” He looked up at her and caught her eyes with his.

Liz nodded toward Ezra to start his own round of questioning. Marshall seemed to have started trusting her at least, so letting the real interrogation begin was the logical step. Besides, Ezra had a casual, easy attitude. They would eventually let Ressler start his own questions, but it was more likely they’d start getting some truth from Marshall if he didn’t feel judged by Ressler.

“We found your prints on the mask and money, Mr. Wren,” Ezra said, leaning forward. As far as Liz knew, they hadn’t found the prints yet, but Marshall didn’t know that.

“Yeah, well…” Marshall lifted one hand like he was going to run it through his air, but then lowered it. “I must’ve accidentally touched it when I opened the bag to see what was in there. You’ll probably find the real robber’s prints on it.”

“Your prints were the only ones we found on the mask and the money, and we have surveillance footage of you coming out of that bank. If you just tell us now what happened, it’ll all be fine. I’m sure you had a reason for what you did.”

Liz saw that Ezra was trying to connect to Marshall too, but the boy didn’t seem like he was going to open up about what really happened. With the way his mouth was tightening, it seemed like he was only going to further retreat.

Marshall gnawed at his bottom lip, a trickle of blood running down his chin from how hard he was biting. “I’m not going to say anything else without my lawyer here. I want to call my lawyer.”

After he said those words, Liz became aware of how small the room was, how it felt like being in a tiny glass box with nowhere to go. She wanted to sigh, but held it in.

If Ezra was frustrated, he didn’t show it. He just raised a hand in the air and shrugged. “All right. We’ll continue this after your attorney arrives.”

* * *

Ressler was pacing the hall leading to the interrogation room so intensely that Liz thought he might wear a hole in the floor, and she was certain that the FBI wouldn’t want to cover that expense.

“Please, sit down. If not for the sake of my patience, then for your sake. Do you want to be too tired to be at your best when the lawyer gets here?” Liz leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes and rubbing her temple.

“You have your coping mechanisms and I have mine,” Ressler said, voice fading as he walked to the other end of the hall.

“I’m gonna agree with Agent Keen,” Ezra said, sitting in the chair next to her. He turned to her. “He doesn’t do this all the time, does he?”

“No, not really,” she said, keeping her voice down. “I’m not sure why he’s so wound up about this. We’ve dealt with higher pressure situations than this.”

“I can hear you,” Ressler said, making another pass by them.

“You’re hearing but not listening,” Liz said, opening her eyes.

Ressler stopped at the end of the hall, body rigid as if he’d just seen something. He walked over to Ezra and Liz’s chairs, glancing back over his shoulder.

“I think his lawyer is here,” Ressler said.

“You sure it’s not a detective in street clothes?” she asked, balancing her chin on her knuckles. Ressler had given them two similar false alarms already.

“He’s carrying a brief case, is wearing a suit, and has a self satisfied expression,” he told her.

“Yeah, sounds like a lawyer,” Ezra said, a rough laugh in his voice.

“Have I gotten the wrong address and found myself in a waiting room for expectant parents?” the voice came from the entrance of the hallway. It was a voice that she knew.

Liz wanted to drop her head into her hands. How was it that Marshall, of _all_ the people she’d ever interrogated, happened to have Alan Shore as his lawyer? But she wouldn’t let his presence damage her composure. She straightened in the chair and turned toward him, challenging him to confront her.

Alan scanned the three members of law enforcement gathered in front of him until his eyes landed on her. When he saw her, he gave a lopsided smile and walked over to where she was sitting. “Well, this is going to be _very_ interesting, wouldn’t you say, Agent Keen?” He rested a hand on her arm. She didn’t move it.

“I guess we’ll find out,” she said, voice light.

“Excuse me, do you two know each other?” Ezra leaned back against his chair, tilting his head so he could look at her around Alan.

“Sort of—”

“Deeply," Akan said, with almost complete sincerity.

Liz slid her arm out from under his hand. “Don’t listen to Mr. Shore, Detective Weller. He thinks he’s funny. We’re barely acquainted. However, I doubt that our knowing each other will be any sort of a problem.” She smiled and twisted in the chair to look up at him. “Now, Mr. Shore, shouldn’t you be seeing to your client, rather than talking to the enemy?”

“I don’t see why there isn’t time for both.” Alan shook his arm to slide his sleeve back to check his watch. “But I’m satisfied with my daily quota of fraternizing. I’ll see all of you in a few minutes.”

They stayed silent as he walked out of sight, but Liz felt Ressler and Ezra’s stares against the side of her face. She wasn’t going to apologize for what had just happened. It was Alan’s fault, not hers.

“What’s going on? Did you make him mad in court or something?” Ressler took the chair on the other side of her. She felt like she was the one being interrogated.

Liz sighed and slid around in the chair to face him. “No. Remember the lawyer I told you about that lives at my hotel? That was him.”

Ressler braced a hand against an arm of the chair. “This isn’t going to compromise your abilities, is it?”

The question made heat bubbled up in her chest. After being partners with her for a year, did Ressler really doubt her abilities _that_ much? Did he think that she would easily be rattled by snake in a suit? She’d interviewed a serial killer for a project in college. She could handle Alan.

“Why are you even asking that? You know I can do this. The real question is whether _you_ can stay calm if he tries to get a rise out of you.” She jabbed a finger at him, lip curled.

The muscles around Ressler’s mouth tightened. “I’m fully capable of doing this. Don’t take this out on me—”

“I know how you are. Men like him get on your nerves, and sometimes you show your weakness. You can’t do that with Alan. He’ll catch on in a second and turn it around on you.” She shook her head and threw herself back against the chair. A fight with her partner _wasn’t_ what she needed. She needed to stay calm and clear headed for round two of questioning.

Precise, loud footsteps came down the hall again. Liz didn’t look up, because she knew who it was. “Well then, shall we start?”

Liz let Ressler stand and walk ahead of her. Even with her confidence in her ability to keep her composure, she still needed some space between her and Alan. So the four of them walked down the hall in single file, uncertainty twisting in her gut. No doubt Alan would’ve told Marshall to keep quiet, but what story had they concocted while she, Ezra, and Ressler were all waiting in the hall? Was it something that would hamper their ability to make a convincing case if or when Marshall went to trial?

She took the seat next to Ezra since it was furthest away from Alan. For his part, Alan settled in his chair across from Ressler, acting as if he completely belonged in the interrogation room.

“You know, you remind me of someone I work with,” Alan said, squinting at Ressler.

“I see,” Ressler said, keeping his tone and expression neutral.

“Do you mind if I call you Brad 2.0? I think I will. It’s terribly _fitting_ ,” Alan said, nodding, satisfied with christening Ressler with a new name.

“I do mind. You’ll call me Agent Ressler,” Ressler said, shifting forward in his seat.

“Mr. Shore,” Liz interrupted, “We’re not here to rename the people in this room.”

“You’re here to keep order, aren’t you? All of you have probably worked up some kind of routine to play into my clients trust.” Alan’s eyelids lowered and he glanced over at Marshall, who was looking at the table, shifting in his chair.

“Ah!” Alan raised an index finger. “You probably also told him some implausible lies to try to get him to incriminate himself.”

“Lying to someone we're interrogating isn’t illegal,” Ezra said, as if it was an automatic response.

“ _True_. At least he’s being interrogated by the police and not the FBI, who can choose not to record their interviews in some cases and instead rely on potentially incorrectly reported in Form 302s,” he said, eyes roving over Ressler, then landing on Liz.

“We’re not here to talk about your qualms with the FBI either. We would like to talk to Mr. Wren about what he was doing with a stolen car and a bag of cash involved in a robber from Morgan Stanley.” She looked back to Marshall. “Mr. Wren, as we told you, we caught your face on surveillance video, and the money was in the car you stole.”

“It's clear what happened.” Ressler scooted forward and pinned Marshall with his gaze. “Your friends let you take the fall for their crime. Do you really want them to go free? If you tell us what really happened, you’ll get a lighter sentence, and they’ll be punished.”

Marshall pressed his lips together but said nothing. Alan raised his eyebrows. “I believe my client is invoking his right not to speak.”

“He’s only going to hurt himself if he doesn’t say anything,” Ressler said, voice sharp. “If you just let the evidence speak for itself without explaining anything, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.”

Alan covered his mouth and yawned, then dragged hand down his face. He opened his eyes and shook his head, raising his hands in the air. “ _Sorry_ , I was just reminded of being lectured by the umpteenth time by my junior high principle.”

Liz’s patience was already starting to fray. It was entirely possible that they could spend hours going in circles, with Ressler attempting to crack Marshall while Alan made some flippant comment, and she tried to referee the entire affair while also trying to get Marshall to open up to her again.

“I need something to eat,” she announced. “I’m going to the vending machine. Do you want me to get something this time, Mr. Wren? I could even order some take out if you want.”

He silently shook his head, as if saying the words “ _I would like pizza_ ”, could be used against him. Liz rose and rounded the table, walking toward the door.

“My client doesn’t want any, but I wouldn’t mind something if you’re making the trip!” Alan called after her.

She didn’t look back and shut the door on him.


End file.
